Tourism
Minister Mr. Kadakampally Surendran
says, “Sensing the immense and innumerable possibilities of promoting Kerala as
a destination for ‘Adventure and
Activity based Tourism’, the State Tourism Department is focusing on
developing new projects to utilize the same, that the need and time has come
for the tourism department to evolve itself to cater to the needs of activity
and adventure based tourism from now on.”

Inaugurating
a one day workshop organized by the department to give shape to its tourism
policy. While the primary focus at the workshop had been to find new
possibilities to take adventure tourism forward in the state, the minister has
stressed on the need to work closely and in coordination with the Forest
Department to realize the goals in the adventure tourism sector. Kerala Tourism is currently planning to
re-brand itself and find new avenues to take the sector forward in order to
double the tourist arrivals by 2021. Keeping this in mind the department will
now start a new ‘Tourist Circuit’
based out of North Kerala and will shift focus from areas it had been
concentrating all this while to specifically give thrust to Adventure Tourism
with the sole aim of attracting more youngsters to the state.

Dr.
Venu Vasudevan, Principal Secretary,
Kerala Tourism spoke in workshop, “Opined that the cooperation and
coordination with the Forest Department is of paramount importance for the
growth of adventure tourism in the state and that this could be achieved
without violating any of the existing environmental laws.”

Mr. P. Bala Kiran, IAS, Director, Kerala Tourism said
that for the first time in the History of Kerala Tourism the numbers of the
in-bound foreign tourists have swelled beyond 1 million and that domestic
tourists arrivals have touched 1.38 crores.

Those
who took part in the workshop were Additional Chief Conservator of Forests Dr. Amit Malik IAS, Tourism India
Managing Director Mr. Ravishanker KV, Mr. Rajeev Anchal, Member of the
Executive Council of Adventure Tour Operators Association of India Dr. T Samuel, Kerala Tourism ADG Mr. Jaffer Malik IAS among
others. A theme paper on setting up the
new draft policy on Adventure Tourism needed in Kerala was presented by Dr.
Samuel.